


Beyond Words

by LostCauses (Anteros)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Cold War, Language Barrier, M/M, Reincarnation, Soviet Union, eruri - Freeform, erwin is english, levi is russian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:47:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26652424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anteros/pseuds/LostCauses
Summary: A continuation of a reincarnation AU by crownlessk_ing set in the Soviet Union in the 1980s.  After years of searching for each other, Erwin finally finds Levi in the Soviet Union.  This is what happens after the reunite.
Relationships: Levi & Erwin Smith
Comments: 9
Kudos: 58





	Beyond Words

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crownlessk_ing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownlessk_ing/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Russian Reincarnation AU](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/690877) by crownlessk_ing. 



> This will make no sense unless you first read [these tweets](https://twitter.com/crownlessk_ing/status/1308320886160793601?s=20) by @crownlessk_ing, who wrote this gorgeous reincarnation AU where, after years of searching, Erwin and Levi finally find each other, only to discover that they speak different languages; Erwin English and Levi Russian. It's such a gorgeous idea, so beautifully written, that I couldn't help hijacking it and running with it. This picks up exactly where the tweets leave off.

Levi’s small drab apartment becomes their confessional; here they make their wordless atonement. Every touch, every caress, speaks volumes; of trust, of guilt, of sorrow and regret, of love and devotion that transcends death. A lifetime of denial and long lonely years of yearning melt away under their burning desire and the fierce heat of their bodies. 

But Erwin knows they are living on borrowed time. His visa is running out, his return flight is already booked. He tries to persuade Levi to flee with him to the West, but it’s out of the question. Travel is only for the most privileged Party members. Levi has no travel documents, no money, and the KGB are already watching him on account of his connection to Kenny Ackerman, the notorious mafia boss of the Solntsevskaya bratva. Erwin tries to tell Levi he will stay, but Levi rails at him in Russian. Erwin doesn’t understand the words but the sentiment is clear. They argue all night until finally in the cold light of dawn Levi stops and just looks at him. “Erwin”, he says in his broken English. “Go. You must go.” 

Erwin is devastated. They say goodbye in the small drab flat, their bodies expressing the depth of emotion that they could never even begin to put into words. Erwin travels to the airport alone, Levi’s touch still burning on his skin. “At least you had this.” He tells himself. “At least you know.” “Maybe one day you can come back.” “Maybe the Iron Curtain will fall.” “Maybe one day Levi will be able to travel to the West.” But there are too many maybes. As he walks out onto the tarmac to board the plane, he can still taste Levi’s lips, the aching tenderness of his kisses. He stops at the foot of the gangway. Too many maybes. The air steward is gesturing to him from the top of the steps. Erwin turns slowly, then he drops his bag and runs. Runs towards the uniformed guards stationed outside the terminal. The shout at him to halt, AK-47s raised. Erwin lifts his hands as he runs. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” he falls to his knees in front of them, arms still raised. “I want to defect,” he gasps. “I want to defect.” 

They take him to an anonymous room, in an anonymous building somewhere on the outskirts of the city. They question him for days and Erwin concocts story after story about why he is defecting. The authorities are perplexed. The KGB know nothing of him. He’s not on any of their lists. Through all their extensive international network of agents, handlers, counter intelligence operatives, and informers no one has any information about Erwin Smith, beyond the mundane facts of his life. Convinced he is a deep cover double agent, they intensify their interrogation techniques. 

It’s five days later that Levi happens to hear a brief news report on the radio about a spy who has defected from the West. His blood runs cold. He grabs his jacket and runs out of the flat. At the railway station he steals a copy of _Pravda_ and leafs through it frantically until he finds Erwin’s face staring at him from the smudged newsprint. 

Levi goes straight to Kenny, begs him to find out where Erwin is being held, offers to pay him back in any way he can, if only he can get him in to see Erwin just once. Kenny promises nothing. Twenty-four hours later a car pulls up outside Levi’s apartment block. “Kenny sent me,” the driver says. Levi gets in and they drive to a notorious detention centre on the far side of the city. Levi’s heart sinks. The guards who usher him in and lead him down the long corridors say nothing, it’s almost as if he’s a ghost. From the far end of the corridor he can hear a woman sobbing. The guard stops abruptly before an unmarked door, grey and scuffed like all the others. 

“You’ve got ten minutes,” he says, unlocking the door and pushing it open. 

Levi steps inside. His heart is already hammering, but it almost stops dead in his chest when he sees Erwin. He’s unshaven and unkempt, his clothes dirty and dishevelled, the front of his shirt stained with blood. His left eye is swollen shut and the corner of his mouth is bruised and scabbed. His wrists are cuffed and chained to a ring in the centre of the steel table in front of him. But when he raises his head, and sees Levi standing in the doorway, he smiles triumphantly. That same creepy fucking smile that Levi remembers so well from a lifetime before. 

“I left you once before, Levi,” he says. “I couldn’t leave you again.”

“You stupid fucking idiot.” Levi replies in Russian. 

When Levi leaves, he goes straight back to Kenny and pledges him the only thing of value he has to offer, if he can secure Erwin’s release; a lifetime of service to the bratva. His life for Erwin’s. 

Kenny pours two glass of vodka and squints at Levi through a cloud of cigarette smoke.

“What is it about this guy?” he asks. 

“I don’t know how to explain it.” Levi answers.

“Try.” 

“You wouldn’t believe me even if I did,” he mutters. 

Kenny barks a laugh. “This mean you remember kid? Took ya long enough!” 

Levi’s eyes blow wide in surprise. 

Kenny just keeps on laughing and pours another vodka. 

“Let me speak to Uri,” he wheezes. 

Uri Reiss is an influential Party apparatchik, his connection to Kenny Ackerman is well known but obscure. It doesn’t do to question too closely the relationship between a senior Party official and the head of one of the city’s most infamous crime syndicates. 

Seven anxious days and sleepless nights later a boy turns up at Levi’s flat with a message from Kenny. “Tomorrow,” he says. “Rizhskaya station, twelve noon.” 

At midday Levi steps off the train onto the platform, his breath clouding the freezing air. As the train pulls away and the small throng of people exits the station, he sees a solitary figure sitting alone at the end of the platform. Erwin. Levi breaks into a run. 

In the UK, Erwin’s defection causes a minor scandal. Questions are asked in parliament. MI5, to their embarrassment, are forced to deny all knowledge of Erwin Smith. The press are quick to pick up on the case and waste no time linking Erwin’s name to Burgess and Maclean, and all the connotations that denotes. _The Telegraph_ fulminates about the duplicitous untrustworthy nature of homosexuals. The media spotlight briefly falls on a junior backbencher, Nile Dok, MP for Eastbourne, who is revealed to have been at university with Erwin. He issues a statement denying any knowledge of Erwin Smith’s activities or proclivities, and the press eventually looses interest. 

In a small town outside Moscow, Erwin and Levi live lives of quiet obscurity. They don’t have much, but they have each other and that’s all that they need. All that they ever needed. To Levi’s surprise, Kenny never calls in his debt, and though they know they’re being watched by the KGB, they’re largely left to get on with their lives. Erwin learns to speak flawless Russian. Levi’s English improves immeasurably, though he never looses his heavy accent, which Erwin loves. 

The years pass and they watch with barely suppressed hope as the Cold War begins to thaw, Gorbachev comes to power and ushers in perestroika. Glasnost brings hope, optimism, freedom of speech and cautiously opening borders. They apply for passports, more in hope than expectation, and are astonished when their application is approved. Returning to the UK is out of the question, so they decide on Germany instead. When they take the train into the city to pick up their visas from the authorities, they’re greeted at the passport office by a young blonde woman with an air of quiet authority. When she hands them their passports and visas Erwin’s hands are shaking. She sees them to the door. “Enjoy your travels gentlemen” she says. Erwin thanks her in English, having forgotten his Russian in his excitement. As they turn away from the door, she stops them. “Mr Ackerman, I believe we have a family connection.” Levi stops, frowns, he’s sure he’s never seen her before. “My name is Historia Reiss, my uncle was Uri.” She smiles and bids them good day.

They move to Berlin shortly after the wall falls and the city is euphoric with the promise of reunification. One night, in a cheap bar in Kreuzberg they bump into Hange and Moblit, who unbeknownst to each other had lived their entire lives in the city, on opposite sides of the wall; Hange in the East, Moblit in the West. They spend the rest of the night drinking together, reminiscing about past lives, missed opportunities and second chances. 

Though they love Berlin, Erwin yearns for the ocean, so they travel west, eventually pitching up on the Atlantic coast of Brittany, where they settle in a small town that swarms with tourists in the summer, but is haven of tranquillity in the winter months. They live out the rest of their lives there in quiet contentment, punctuated by occasional hectic visits to Hange and Moblit in Berlin. 

They’re in their fifties when gay marriage is finally legalised, and Erwin casually asks Levi over breakfast one morning whether they should tie the knot. Levi scoffs that they have no need for a piece of paper, adding that hell will freeze over before he’ll ever set foot in a fucking church. Erwin doesn’t press the point, but he pouts sadly, so Levi agrees. 

“Stop fucking pouting starikashka, I said I’d marry you, what more do you want?” 

Erwin kisses him until they’re both breathless. 

They marry in a quiet ceremony at the local bureau de l'État-Civil. It’s just the two of them; Erwin says his vows in English, Levi in Russian. Afterwards they walk home together, hand in hand, to restate their pledge with lingering caresses and heated sighs. Their unspoken devotion uniting them beyond both words and time.


End file.
